The Value of Heritage: Reducing Costs and Complexity for Mars Sample Return

Earlier this year, NASA announced they are "moving forward with 10 studies to examine more affordable and faster methods" of bringing Mars samples back to Earth as part of the agency's Mars Sample Return (MSR) program.

Over the last two decades, MSR has been a long-term goal of the planetary science community. And since NASA's Perseverance rover landed on the Red Planet in 2021, the ante to return those samples the rover has been collecting has only increased.

The Mars sample return mission is a groundbreaking endeavor designed to bring Martian regolith and rock samples back to Earth for detailed analysis, aiming to answer fundamental questions about Mars' geology and potential for past life.

Of the 10 studies NASA awarded, seven industry players - one of which is Lockheed Martin - are conducting 90-day architectural studies to examine MSR methods.

A New Feat of Planetary Science and Engineering

MSR is a unique mission, with a lot of moving parts. NASA is looking to achieve not only a successful sample collection, but also a successful retrieval and launch, return to Earth, curation and containment. As SpaceNews recently quoted Lockheed Martin following a MSR panel at the 2024 ASCEND conference, "past NASA flagship planetary missions typically have had no more than two elements, an orbiter and lander… MSR has up to nine, depending on how an element is defined."

Credit: NASA/ESA

"Returning samples from Mars is incredibly challenging due to the complex coordination across the multiple mission elements to ensure each one achieves its intended function," said Beau Bierhaus, principal research scientist at Lockheed Martin Space. "Additionally, the mission must address planetary protection concerns to prevent contamination of both Mars and Earth, as well as preserving sample integrity over the multiple hand-offs from initial acquisition to Earth return, both adding further layers of complexity."

The difficulty of coordinating these elements requires precision engineering, robust design and a deep understanding of planetary environments.

Ingredients for a Successful Mission

As part of the MSR study we're performing for NASA, we address three core areas to ensure the best value for achieving mission success:

• Manage key requirements - defining specific requirements from the beginning and rigorously managing them to avoid growth.
• Reduce complexity - using heritage, flight-proven elements and limiting new designs to only those needed to close the architecture.
• Cost reduction - leveraging the successful NASA Science Mission Directorate cost-capped planetary mission paradigm.

In mid-October, NASA will review the proposals from the 10 organizations to determine if any changes, alterations and enhancements to the MSR architecture should be made.

A History of Mars Mission Success

Lockheed Martin has a rich heritage of Mars work; we supported all 22 of NASA's missions to the Red Planet, developed 11 of those spacecraft and are currently flying the agency's three orbiters. Our team has also designed and built the spacecraft and return capsules for all three of NASA's robotic sample return missions - including OSIRIS-REx, which successfully returned NASA's first asteroid samples last year.

"We have partnered with NASA and the science community on the study and development of a Mars sample return for 50 years, with our first report published in 1974. Our long commitment to advancing planetary exploration is not just about the technology and engineering but also about the focus on science and its broader impact on humanity's understanding of our place in the universe," said Poyser.

MSR will provide scientists with unprecedented opportunities to study Mars in ways that were previously unimaginable. The data gleaned from these samples could reveal crucial information about the planet's history, its potential for past life and its suitability for future human exploration. As NASA looks to return to the Moon with Artemis and extend human exploration with its Moon to Mars Architecture, a greater understanding of the Red Planet is the next step to make this vision even more of a reality.

Check Out How We Return Samples from Space